Dear Reporters,
If you’re interviewing a theocrat who says “all our laws are based on the Ten Commandments” and you don’t immediately ask them to provide evidence and examples for that laughably stupid claim, just go ahead and quit your job.
www.nytimes.com/2024/06/21/u...
Only 3/10 are illegal at all (murder, stealing, false witness), and the constitution goes out of its way to ensure laws /can't/ be based on several others. Such a dumb claim
I was addressing the second half snarkily. With some knowledge of how adultery laws have worked in various places over time, where it was technically illegal for both parties, but men had far more latitude for action written in the law. Future is inflected by the past but doesn't directly mirror it.
There was a case in NY maybe 15 years ago? But it was a couple that were having sex in a park during the day, turns out the woman was cheating on her husband. They were both charged IIRC don't recall how it turned out. But adultery is still illegal in NY
People who claim this kind of thing always baffle me. You can't tell right from wrong on your own? Only in some religious context? You don't have your own moral compass, you just borrow one and go based on vibes from there?
Some of them are telling on themselves, yes. But I think something that is never mentioned is that evangelicals have an extremely bleak view of human nature. They think people are generally evil and need God's moral constraints.
I'll trust someone who operates in good faith with their own flawed moral compass vs someone who strictly adheres to someone else's moral compass. And it's not even close.
I generally agree, with the caveat that each person doesn't need to reinvent the wheel, and if you truly *need* a set of rules to not steal or kill, by all means use it.
While I don't think everyone needs to reinvent the wheel, I think there's value in kiddos stealing a toy and finding out it felt yucky when their friend got sad. Sometimes you have to skin a knee to understand that skinning knees sucks and should be avoided. But at a high level I get you and agree.
In writing this I'm understanding that one extension of this is "hardship is necessary for goodness" which I absolutely don't agree with. So I'll take this on the chin and say my worldview does need a little refining, but I'm ok with being a work in progress.
Sure and for the non-fundamentalist traditions, experience helps form the conscience, which for most of them is an actual practice, because a.) you need to know how to prioritize conflicting moral directives and b.) Jesus said very plainly that the basis of morality is love of God and neighbor.
Well…there are a lot of rich people who think stealing other kids toys and bankrupting them to get it back feels great.
But then again, there’s also a lot who do that but still think they’re obeying God
I sometimes wonder how folks like that would have developed in an environment where they got to forge their worldview via interaction instead of instruction. I'm not saying it'd be any different, but I often wonder.
one quote had the politician saying the 10 Commandments were the first laws, from Moses, and I would like to have asked the gentleman if he had heard that Moses in those same scriptures was said to be from Egypt, i.e. already existed, and had laws, b/c that seems a pretty big part of the Moses story
At least back in the day, Christian theologians had the decency to argue that what made Moses' law distinct was that it was more gracious or something.
obviously for folks that believe that way you could just say well these were given especially by god, but no they have to go much farther and pretend like Moses began the first ever civilization
